13 -- Ministers Should Be Entirely Sanctified
145. Is it not vastly important that ministers of Christ be entirely sanctified to God?
It is. Hence, in our ordination service, each minister declares that he is "groaning after it,"
and expects to "be made perfect in love." Holiness is the chief element of efficiency in the
ministry. Talents, learning, and eloquence without it are "as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."
Without it the minister can neither live, nor preach, nor labor as he should. There is a clearness, a
strength, a fullness, an energy, and an unction needed in the sacred office impossible without entire
holiness. It would be infinitely better for the church and the world, if every partially sanctified
minister would suspend all effort in other directions till, "with strong crying and tears," he receive
the cleansing baptism of the Holy Ghost.
After the disciples received their great commission, they were repeatedly commanded to
tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they received power from on high. Although they had been under
the immediate tuition of the Master himself (which was better than any theological school in the
world), yet they were not prepared for their work without "the promise of the Father " -- the
endowment of power.
"Perfect love casteth out fear," and ministers need it in order to faithfulness to all classes,
saints or sinners, in or out of the church of God. Perfect love makes fearless ministers. It enables
them to labor in the strength of God with perfect freedom from all fear of the rich, the influential,
or the wicked of their congregations. In the light and power of the Holy Ghost, the manner of their
preaching is, "warning every man and teaching every man;" the matter of their preaching is, "Christ
in you the hope of glory;" and the end of their preaching is, "that they might present every man
perfect in Christ Jesus."
Ministers have duties, trials, and temptations peculiar to themselves, and need this grace to
give them constant and complete victory over all their foes, and keep them firm in the path of duty.
Nothing but the power and dominion of grace in a pure heart, can save any man from being affected
in his ministerial work by his pocketbook, his reputation, or the frowns, the smiles, or praise of
men. It requires a pure heart and a perfect love to be dead to all these things and keep our "eye
single," and our "whole body full of light."
Brethren, the importance of our work, its difficulties, and the fearful responsibilities
involved, all demand the best possible moral preparation. As ministers of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we should be sanctified wholly, to a man, so as to stand in united solid phalanx against the
combined powers of earth and hell. How Charles Wesley expresses this! --
"Stand then in his great might,
With all his strength endued;
But take to arm you for the fight
The panoply of God.
"Indissolubly joined,
To battle all proceed;
But arm yourselves with all the mind
That was in Christ our head."
What glorious havoc such a body of ministers would make in tearing down Satan's
kingdom, and winning victories for Jesus! Their constant triumphs would fill heaven with joy, and
hell with consternation. The great want of the church, the world, and the times, is a ministry filled
with the fire, love, and power of the Holy Ghost -- true, invincible, holy men of God.
Rev. Charles G. Finney says: "To me it seems very manifest that the great difference in
ministers in regard to their spiritual influence and usefulness, does not lie so much in their literary
and scientific attainments as in the measure of the Holy Ghost which they enjoy.
"A thousand times as much stress ought to be laid upon this part of a thorough preparation
for the ministry as has been. Until it is felt, acknowledged, and proclaimed upon the housetops,
rung through our halls of science, and sounded forth in our theological seminaries, that this is
altogether an indispensable part of the preparation for the work of the ministry, we talk in vain and
at random when we talk of the necessity of a thorough preparation and course of training."
"I must confess that I am alarmed, grieved, and distressed beyond expression, when so
much stress is laid upon the necessity of mere human learning, and so little upon the necessity of
the baptism of the Holy Ghost."
"Of what use would ten thousand ministers be without being baptized with the Holy Ghost?
Ten thousand times ten thousand of them would be instrumental neither in sanctifying the Church
nor in converting the world." -- Letter in Oberlin Evangelist.
Bishop Hedding says, in his address to the N. J. Conference: "It is as important that you
(ministers) should experience this holy work. as it is that the sinners to whom you preach should
be converted."
146. Can a minister successfully preach perfect love without the experience himself?
He cannot as clearly, nor as successfully as with the experience. He may, and should
preach it, as well as he can, while he may not be clear in the experience; he may present the theory
correctly, and may lead some to its enjoyment, but not as he might with the light and power of the
grace in his own soul. Without the experience, no man can urge believers to obey God in all things,
to be holy, and love Him with all the heart, without the reproving thought, "Physician, heal thyself"
How can we skillfully pilot others through a channel filled with shoals and dangers, into the haven
of Perfect Love, which we have never traversed ourselves? If ministers would successfully lead
the children of God into the spiritual Canaan, they must first go themselves and taste the sweets of
that land "flowing with milk and honey." Christ said: "The shepherd goeth before the flock, and
leadeth them." How can we expect to send the people ahead of us? If we know the way better than
they do, should not our superior knowledge be accompanied by a superior life? Have not the
people a right to expect it? Oh, let us go before them, and be able to say, Follow us, even as we
follow Christ.
1. Bishop Peck says "How can her ministers thoroughly and effectually 'show the house of
Jacob her iniquities, and God's people their sins,' and leal them to the cleansing blood, while they
are themselves neither made 'perfect in love,' nor groaning after it." The cause of such lamentable
weakness in these Heaven-sanctioned efforts stands out as clear as the sun. Many of us, to whose
charge the work is solemnly committed, are sanctified but in part and with deep solicitude, but
strict fidelity, we must add, some of us seem content to remain so." -- Central Idea, p. 128.
2. President Mahan writes: "I must myself be led by the Great Shepherd into the 'green
pastures, and beside the still waters,' before I could lead the flock of God into the same blissful
regions."
3. "Whatever is our level in Christian life," says Dr. Lovick Pierce, "will be the level of
our general membership. If we are not after entire sanctification, so neither will our members be."
-- Sermon before Gen. Con.
4. Dr. George Peck says: "How important is a holy ministry! Well was the injunction
given, "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord!" The church will scarcely take a higher stand
in religion than that which is occupied by the ministry. And the ministry will lead the flock on in
paths of peace and holiness in the same proportion in which they are themselves possessed of the
spirit if holiness." -- Christian Perfection, p. 422.
5. Before Rev. Henry Smith enjoyed the blessing, he preached it merely because it was in
his creed. He says in a letter to Bishop Asbury: " When you, sir, was enforcing the necessity of
preaching sanctification, 'not in a commonplace way, but to feel the importance of it,' it sunk deep
into my heart for I knew I had been guilty of preaching sanctification merely because it was in my
creed."
After the Lord cleansed his heart, he writes to Bishop Asbury the following: "Glory be to
God in the highest, I am unspeakably happy. The half respecting perfect love has never been told
me. Oh, how I long for all Christians, Christian ministers in particular, to be made partakers of
perfect love! ... Oh, if all our preachers enjoyed perfect love, how they would scatter the holy fire
through the cities, towns, and country! Our enemies themselves would be constrained to call the
Methodists the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. The Lord grant you great success in
STIRRING UP THE PREACHERS TO SEEK AFTER HOLINESS."
6. Rev. B. W. Gorham well says: "What a man is to teach he must have. If it be to teach
mathematics, he must be a mathematician; if it be to teach botany, he must be a botanist; if it be
Greek, he must get Greek; and if we are to teach holiness, we must first have holiness..... An
oculist must not have sore eyes. The man who treats rheumatics must not limp. He must not go
about with a chronic cough who sells 'a sure cure for consumption.' " -- God's Method with Man,
p. 176.
The experience of this blessing furnishes the power and impulse to preach it. Such a
minister can preach holiness, and say: "We speak that which we do know, and testify that which
we have seen." with such there will be no apologizing for delaying to preach on the subject but the
holy fire burning within will flame out, and holiness will be preached and offered to all who
"hunger and thirst after righteousness." The doctrine and experience will come out of a sanctified
man as spontaneously as sweetness comes out of a rose, or as water bubbles up from a living
fountain.
147. Why is there so little preaching upon this subject?
Undoubtedly it is because so few of the ministry enjoy it themselves.
Bishop Peck says "But there are reasons why holiness is not more faithfully preached. It is
hard to raise the stream higher than the fountain. It is hard to preach what we have never
experienced, and the fear of the reproach, 'Physician, heal thyself,' we doubt not, hinders many of
us from charging home upon the members of the churches their remaining corruptions, their neglect
of 'the blood' that 'cleanseth from all sin,' and their exposure to apostasy and final ruin in
consequence.
"Every command to the disciples of Christ uttered by us from the word of God, 'Be ye
holy,' would condemn us; every promise urged for the encouragement of seekers for the blessing,
would excite the inquiry, Why does not the preacher lay hold of the promises? Alas! how many
have been deterred from preaching a present, rich, and full salvation, by the terrors which these
interrogatories have inspired!
We can thus see how it is that we have so little preaching on the subject of holiness. The
want of experience renders it unpleasant to do it, and hard to do it truthfully and effectually."
Central Idea, p. 376.
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